How To Distinguish Between Real Leather And Faux Leather

Talking about which kind of material that rules the fashion world, leather is king. If you take a deep look into it, there actually are many types of leather, but mainly it is divided into 2: the real leather and faux leather. If you are new and don’t have much knowledge about them, hardly you can find the difference between these two types.

However, their price range is a huge distance. Real leathers are mostly expensive, some are luxury whereas the faux is much cheaper. From that point, sometimes, a few bad sellers will do a cheat on their leather products that causes harm to the right of customers.

To avoid such pity cases, you need to acknowledge these useful tips that I am going to share you below. Check them out!

Don’t look at the leather’s color

I saw that many people once made this old mistake. Real leather and the faux can’t be distinguished by their color as these two types enable to be dyed. It means that if you see a leather piece or item with unnatural color like red, blue or yellow, it still can be the real leather.

To identify whether the material is real or not, it’s just through the smelling, touching, testing and feeling.

Price tag

Even with the lowest quality real leather, its price won’t go cheap by comparison to the faux. However, if you unluckily meet a bad seller who tells lie about the leather. For example, they sell faux leather but keep telling that their products are the real and increase the price as high as a real leather product, you will be an unknown victim if you don’t get enough knowledge.

Thus, though this a also a way to identify real or unreal leather, I don’t highly recommend you to depend too much on it.

Look at the label

This is the very first tip on how to distinguish between the real and the faux leather when you go shopping leather clothes like jackets, pants, or leather accessories such as bags. If it is labeled as “manmade leather”, that means the material is not real.

If it does not say anything at all, mostly the manufacturer wants to avoid saying directly that their products are made from synthetic leather. As usually the sellers always want to advertise the best features of their goods. If their material is real leather, the products will be labeled with something like “top-grain leather”, “genuine leather”, “made with animal products” or “real leather”. Such these labels also the best way to tell us how to take care of our wallet as each kind will require different way of maintenance.

It’s not an exception for old goods that already lost their labels. If you meet such products, let’s move into the next tip.

Touch the leather

You should know that real leathers are the kind of material made from the real skin of animals like goat, lamb, cow, crocodile, etc. They either are or aren’t getting through some treatments to make the surface more beautiful and durable. However, generally, there still exists pores, scars, pebbles, the imperfection on the leather.

Meanwhile, the faux leather is obviously made by humans being so that even if they have something looks like pore or pebbles, they aren’t real and look unclear.

Besides, the real leather piece will figure the shape of animals and usually comes up with small to medium pieces whereas the faux leather pieces will be larger and squared.

Another way to test the leather is pressing its surface.

As real leather is like our skin, once you press it, there will be some wrinkles on the surfaces, but it will be back to the original shape later thanks to the natural flexibility.

With the faux leather, it will depress down or remain its shape because of its toughness.

Bend the leather

Just like the pressing test above, as real leather arrives in great elasticity and flexibility, once you bend it down, its color will be lighter a little bit and has some wrinkles.

On the contrary, with the faux, it doesn’t because of its rigidity and toughness. As well, it is harder to bend down.

Smell

This is also another easy way to identify which is real or faux leather, smelling it.

If it releases a rusty, natural smell, the leather is real. On the contrary, if it has chemical-y or plastic-like smell, that is faux leather. In case, you are unsure about the smell of these two types of leather, head straight to the leather stores where you ensure they sell the real and high-quality products, test the smell.

Once you acknowledge it, just go back to the products you want to check, try again. I’m quite sure that you won’t be mistakable.

Fire test

I don’t recommend you to bring a lighter to a leather store and burn their goods. But in some cases which you are allowed like testing the underside of a coach, let’s try this way to make sure it is real or not.

Hold the flame up in that area for about five to ten seconds, if the material smells like burnt hair and chars a little bit, that’s real leather whereas if the smell is plastic-like and the material catches flame, it is faux leather.

Cutting test

As real leather is made from real skin of animals, which means it will have many strands once you cut it off whereas with the faux, it doesn’t. The cutting edge will be clean.

To be a smart customer, it’s essential to equip yourself some knowledge about the products you intend to buy or at least, go and get some help from the experienced individuals that are trustful enough. By the way, choosing the best leather wallets and reliable brand to drop your money on is also important.

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